focused on working

with young people.

aufZAQ certifies trainings

Qualified Youth Workers for Europe -

A manual for the recognition of competences

illustrates competences of persons

working with young people.

The aufZAQ Competence Framework

aufZAQ – Quality of Trainings and Competence in Youth Work

aufZAQ offers the certification of basic and further education and training courses for people active in youth work and accompanying fields since 2003. So far over 40 training courses have been certified.

aufZAQ is funded by the Austrian Federal Chancellery and the Youth Departments of the Federal States of Austria.

Certification Process

Benefits of Certification

aufZAQ provides orientation for interested participants of training courses to choose the adequate educational offer. The certificate ensures, that participants receive a practice orientated and external quality approved training course to improve their skills and competence.

Training providers get an external quality assurance, which ensures that specified criteria are fulfilled, recognised by the federal ministry and the federal youth departments.

Employers within the youth sector have the guarantee, that graduates of certified trainings have relevant theoretical and practical skills and competence. The certificate assures high standards and offers a guarantee for the specific qualification of the employee.

Process Overview

The process of course certification can be broken down into predefined steps:

The applicant contacts the aufZAQ Office to get all necessary information and support.
The application form as well as some additional documents of the training course are submitted to the aufZAQ Office.
If the submission fulfils all formal criteria, an independent group of experts is assigned by the aufZAQ Advisory Board to examine the training course on the basis of the aufZAQ standards.
The applicant is given the chance to provide additional information and/or amendments if the group of experts considers it necessary.
Based on the experts’ report the aufZAQ Advisory Board decides on the certification of the submitted training course.

After a training course is certified, we have certain continual quality assurance measures which the training provider agrees to fulfil to ensure the certification stays valid.

aufZAQ Structure

aufZAQ consists of the aufZAQ Advisory Board and the aufZAQ Office.

The Board is responsible for the final decision during the certification process and verifies the quality of submitted and certified training courses. The following members are part of the aufZAQ Advisory Board:

2 representatives of the Youth Departments of the Federal States of Austria (one of them acting as chairperson of the aufZAQ Advisory Board)
1 representative of the Austrian Federal Chancellery
1 representative of the Austrian National Youth Council
1 expert in the field of youth work
(up to 2 additional members can be co-opted by the aufZAQ Advisory Board)

The aufZAQ Office provides continous support for providers of training courses who are interested in the certification program. We share the office with the Austrian National Youth Council.

The aufZAQ Competence Framework

Between 2015 and 2017 we developed the aufZAQ Competence Framework for Youth Work. It outlines how people active in youth work act wholistic and covers open youth work and the work of children’s and youth associations. In Austria, the aufZAQ Competence Framework is regarded as the binding standard for trainings of youth workers.

Download the Competence Framework.

In addition, the online version of the Competence Framework is available on this website in German: www.kompetenzrahmen.at

Service Point for the Austrian National Qualification Framework

The aufZAQ Competence Framework also works as a translation tool for educational offers for youth workers to the Austrian National Qualification Framework (NQF). Since 2019 aufZAQ works as a NQF-Service Point and advises and supports through the process of mapping non formal qualifications to the NQF.

The NQF is an instrument for mapping qualifications from the Austrian education system. The aims are to provide a transparency tool to facilitate the orientation within the Austrian education system and to support the comparability and comprehensibility of Austrian qualifications in Europe.

Find further information on the NQF at: www.qualifikationsregister.at/en

Project “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe”

aufZAQ and the research project JumP – Youth Work with Perspectives from the University of Applied Sciences in Kempten carried out the project “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe”. The aim of the project was to promote transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications of youth workers.

As the main project result, a handbook was developed on the topic of recognition of competences in a scientific and at the same time easily understandable manner for a broad target group. Findings from formal higher education qualifications for youth work are linked with those from the non-formal field. Thus, valuable perspectives for future qualifications and recognition projects can be developed.

The handbook “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe” is freely available in German and English.

Download the handbook “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe – A handbook for the recognition of competences”.